The art of retrofit: Farrell Centre

Creative approaches to refurbishing and reimagining existing housing.

There are just over 30 million homes in the UK. Much of this housing stock was built in the 20th century, but significant amounts were completed in the 19th century or even earlier. The regional disparities are stark, with housing in the North of England and, notably in post-industrial communities, being on average significantly older than in the South. The North East in particular has some of the oldest housing in the country, requiring significant investment to bring up to modern standards.

With less than 200,000 houses built in 2025, and that number rarely exceeded for decades, new housing accounts for a tiny fraction of the country’s total stock. Despite this, discussions about how to ‘solve’ the housing crisis tend to focus almost exclusively on the role of new housing, ignoring not only the huge disparity in numbers, but the fact that so many of the causes of the crisis lie in the deficiencies of existing stock: in the size and layout of units that make them poorly suited to many households, lack of maintenance and energy inefficiency making them difficult and expensive to heat and cool.

In this event, we explore the contention that any response to the housing crisis needs to start with ‘retrofit’, that is, upgrading or adapting existing housing to improve its condition and ensure it is better suited to the requirements of those who need it. We expand beyond technical or practical understandings of retrofit to consider the creative possibilities of reuse and reimagination of existing housing. We also extend the notion of retrofit beyond the material to consider ideas, concepts or even philosophies might be ‘retrofitted’ to help bring about more egalitarian futures.